Joni Palmer Assistant Professor Landscape Architecture

Joni Palmer is a landscape architect, planner, educational programmer and landscape interpretation designer, as well as a visual artist and poet.

Her work has afforded her the opportunity to work with design firms, public agencies, and private groups in their efforts to make connections between land and people, and place and time. Professor Palmer has focused on developing educational programs and landscape interpretation strategies.

Professor Palmer earned her Bachelors degree in Science at Cornell University, with a double major in City and Regional Planning, and Human-Environment Relations. She received her MLA at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Currently, Joni is an assistant professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture. She is developing a Center for Reading and Writing the Land, a joint effort between the Departments of English and Landscape Architecture.

Recently her poems have appeared in the Landscape Journal, Poetry Midwest, and the Bainbridge Island "Poetry Corners" - a public poetry project. She has given readings in Ames, IA and Seattle, WA. In addition, Joni is creating "TerraStudio," a design/studio practice that works in the realms of landscape/architecture, art, the written word, and education.

Professor Palmer teaches a wide range of courses in the Department of Landscape Architecture - Design Studios [undergraduate and graduate], Construction and Technology, Visual Representation, and Design Theory. A new course, was taught, for the first time Spring 2001, in collaboration with Professor Sheryl St. Germain [Dept. of English]: Reading and Writing the Land: A Learning Community.

Fellowship Proposal:
Poetry as an Interdisciplinary Teaching and Learning Tool: Developing Pedagogy that Enlarges, Enlightens, and Transports Students and Faculty Within and Across Disciplinary Borders.

Teachers often use poetry in the classroom for its quality of metaphor, using it as a means of transforming words and ideas into experience. Design faculty, in architecture and landscape architecture, often use a poem to introduce a project - the poem becomes a means of moving the student beyond the obvious, the practical, and the mundane. Faculty in the sciences often use poetry as a means to inspire students-reading poems that scientists have written, poems that express the scientist's passions, concerns, ideas. However, faculty 'use' the poem on a singular level and without a complete understanding of the depth of its abilities to teach students beyond inspiration and description.

This fellowship has four areas of inquiry: 1) Research: how faculty, across disciplines have used and are using poetry in the University classroom; 2) Pedagogy: Identify pedagogical strategies for how a teacher might use poetry in the classroom - how, when, where, what; 3) Scholarship: develop articles and conference presentations to engage in a larger conversation about implementing this new teaching and learning tool; 4) Dialogue: build a campus network of faculty that can continue to inform and support one another in this pedagogical method that can enhance student learning.

Excerpts from Teaching Philosophy Statement:
I have learned that teaching is not just an intellectual exercise; teaching requires strong interpersonal skills. Being an instructor demands attentiveness to each student's desires hopes, fears, strengths and weaknesses. Each class is different, which requires time and energy, on the part of the teacher, to understand the class dynamics and to then make appropriate adjustments. I do not believe that design ability is innate - this is why design education is something I am so strongly driven towards participating in and contributing to: the learning curve differs from person to person; it is an incredible experience to help and watch students grow.

My teaching spans several disciplines. Currently I am teaching an interdisciplinary course entitled Reading and Writing the Land, as well, I am teaching an honors course (an inherently interdisciplinary seminar). I am constantly involved with the architecture studios, as well as with English/Literature courses. I am enjoying how these courses feed each other (albeit often serendipitously) and allow me new ways of seeing. I intend to continue teaching across curriculums - collaborating with faculty across the university campus - as it expands my ways of thinking, knowing, teaching. My courses are based on developing critical thinking (intuition, reflection, criticism), communication skills (oral, visual, written), interdisciplinary skills, while broadening perspectives and fostering passion, compassion, and dedication. I am committed to an interdisciplinary structure that connects departments, colleges, and the community. I believe this is my strong point: weaving various disciplines into the teaching of classes that range from studio to design implementation to theory.